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Saturday, June 30, 2012

The Cure at Les Eurockeennes 2012

Setlist: Plainsong, Pictures of You, High, The End of the World, Lovesong, Push, Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Sleep When I'm Dead, Play For Today, A Forest, Bananafishbones, Lullaby, The Walk, Mint Car, Doing the Unstuck, Trust, Want, The Hungry Ghost, Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, Disintegration

1st encore: The Kiss2nd encore: Close To Me, Friday I'm In Love, Why Can't I Be You?, Boys Don't Cry.

Show started at 23:15, about 45 minutes later than planned, due to storms at the festival. Ended at 01:39.

Thanks to @fons36, Pierre, Sylvain (and his girlfriend's phone) for the live reports. Also thanks to Olivier (in Belfort) for trying. Special thanks to Olivier (in California) for all of the help with weather and news translations.

01:34 - Fons: reeves has problems with his guitar on wciby
01:23 - Fons: (after The Kiss) back in 30 sec says robert...10minutesleft
01:12 - Fons: end of main set. Robert screaming powerfully (Disintegration)
00:36 - Fons: fantastic version of unstuck.
00:12 - Fons: powerful ending by simon (A Forest)
23:53 - Fons: the sound is extremely well balanced tonight
23:49 - Fons: roberts cord unplugged so he filled in a little late (Inbetween Days).
23:42 - Fons: crowd going wild at push
23:19 - Fons: they sound better than ever before. Won't need my earplugs. now i'm going to enjoy the show. Keep you posted.
23:12 - Fons: cure will be on in a sec. wet again to the bone for second time
22:47 - MarbleAndStone: On the radar it looks like the worst will be over around 23:30. Maybe some smaller showers afterwards. http://
22:39 - Benjamin Lemaire: Severe thunderstorm this time ... Electricity cut off, stopped concerts. no cancellation
22:34 - Benjamin Lemaire: No show has been cancelled - all shows have been delayed. New storm alert.
L'Est Républicain : Beginning of the storm at 21:15 (video)
22:20 - Fons: french crowd is crazy. If they don't play there are a lot of disappointed fans here tonight. i'm glad if they play at all. Sky is black as night now.
22:16 - Benjamin Lemaire: All shows have been stopped
22:15 - Olivier (Belfort): Just had à shower here everybody's wet from head to feet.
22:09 - Sofy Ling: New storm alert at the Eurocks... Power may be cut off again soon! :-/ Say goodbye to wifi...
21:59 - Roger: Lightning is not going to stop us! (Photo)
21:53 - Fons: cheers as jasons drumkit is brought on stage.
21:49 - Jon: Through the PA: "Stay calm, a second storm is coming" + picture of the stage
21:47 - Benjamin Lemaire: Stopped raining. Shows resuming.
21:40 - Sophie Guillin (from local France 3 TV station): Beyond the ongoing thunderstorm, another may be coming in one hour.
21:28 - Benjamin Lemaire: All shows stopped - power has been cut off.
21:26 - Fons: wind very strong now. Little bit of rain. Dry again now. Very dark skies. Dropkick murphies finished early (photo).
21:22 - Raymond: Live weather report here
21:20 - Olivier (California): There's a live (tweet) feed on the web site of local newspaper L'Est Républicain - in French
21:02 - Raymond: Weather Alert on Eurockéennes ... the site could be evacuated because of severe thunderstorms and strong winds expected around 22:00 ... (photo from Olivier)
20:42 - Fons: if the cure play this loud, it will be the last time people without earplugs will hear them. They will still feel simon's bass.
20:30 - Fons: impression of the festival grounds (photo).
20:24 - Fons: dropkick murphys started. After that: the cure! Again thunderstorms all around and hot. Got me some earplugs. MUSIC LOUD HERE!
20:23 - Roger: Very ominous skies over Belfort (photo)!
17:09 - Olivier (Belfort): Just arrived in Belfort 30 degrees here lot of people looking for tickets

After a few shorter shows, The Cure are back to their normal show tonight, and are scheduled to play from 22:30 - 01:00. US start times are 4:30 pm eastern, 3:30 pm central, 2:30 pm mountain, 1:30 pm pacific.

Direct Star may have some sort of live or taped coverage, but it's region locked, so not much use to those of us outside of France. They do have a YouTube channel, so maybe something will get posted there. Anyway, doesn't appear to be any live webcast tonight. Will update if that changes.

That was just pointed out to me on Facebook. By the way, this reminds me of an Our Lady Peace concert in Niagara Falls that I attended. It was stopped in the middle for about half an hour due to a nearby lightning storm, which ended up missing the area.

I know, but what I meant is that it's interesting that they did that with 'The Kiss', as it's usually at least been paired with 'IOTWCS', and hasn't been played without that and 'Fight' on this tour until now.

They only played 'The Kiss' for the first encore and ran off the stage to negociate a bit more time. Then they came back, Robert saying to the crowd 'We only have 11 minutes left, maybe 10, maybe 9 now. Who knows what we're gonna play. It's so confusing...". Craig, I sent you an email with my review and a few newspaper scans. Heard that The Cure are at their hotel in Belfort right now with some fans...

Back from the concert. Nice place but a crappy organization. Total confusion when the strom started. Safety guards telling that everything was cancelled, lots of people went out of the festival venue. Finally nothing has been cancelled but people outside weren't allow to get in again. Many of them are telling their anger on the Eurokéennes internet site.

I just had met two journalists from the big and famous newspaper Libération. They had talked with the festival organizers and The Cure, who was announced to get 2 hours and a half, would have had even more.

The rain hit the festival just before The Cure were supposed to get on stage, so we had to wait for about half an hour, more or less the extra time The Cure was promised.

Anyway the concert was fantastic, incredibly intense and much more powerfull than Primavera Sound. The guys were really concentrate, into it and looking a lot at each other, smiling and providing the impression they wanted to be 'stucked'.

Reeves and Robert were taking the lead one after the other and the whole band did an amazing job.

Review from Sylvain:"We arrived at the Eurockeennes at about 6:30 PM. As we were passing by the artists entrance which was next to the audience entrance, 2 white vans arrived and I saw Roger at the back of the second one! I could not recognize anyone else from the band, but I guess some of them (all of them?) were in there too?

At this time, it was still sunny and hot, but as a stormy night was announced there since a few days, we had rain coats and umbrellas in our bags... what a good idea :o)

A lot of people were there for The Cure. As I was buying my SummerCure T-shirt at the merchandising shop, my girlfriend noticed that everyone there was buying Cure stuff!

As we headed towards the main stage to see the Dropkick Murphys show, some weather alert messages started to scroll on the big screens as the distant black clouds were coming over us. Their show was stopped at 9:15 pm (15 minutes sooner than what was planned). We left the main stage field and then the first storm hit us with heavy rain, wind and lightening strikes. It lasted maybe 15 minutes. After that we went back to the main stage and I saw the roadies finishing to setup the Cure equipment. Then the rain started to fall again so they covered everything on stage with plastic to keep it dry and we had to wait.

After it stopped raining, protections were removed from the stage and a voice announced that the Cure show would happen. Good because I never believed it would be cancelled! After a 45 minutes delay, the plainsong bells started to ring and the Cure were very warmly welcomed by the wet audience.

Now some thoughts about some of the songs as they come to my mind:Plainsong : my favorite Cure show opener. Perfect. Robert already wearing his bass for Pictures of you.High: great version on this tour. Remembering me hearing it for the first time at the record store near high school when I was 16.The end of the world: Never really liked it that much, but nice powerful drums when played live.Just Like Heaven: one of my favorite cure singles! Rain started to fall again.FTEOTDGS: will always remember Robert singing 'It's just rain, I smile' while we were being showered :o)Sleep when I'm dead: great to hear a 4:13 dream song live at last! Last time I saw them was Paris 2008 and only 3 new songs were played at the time(one of which not on the album).Bananafishbones: nice to hear this live! In a time without Internet, I would have been really surprised!Mint car: I love that song live. Fits perfectly in festivals.Doing the unstuck : first time I hear this live as my first Cure show was in '96. loved it.Want: nice and powerful. Would have been even better after Plainsong.Hungry ghost: probably my favorite song of 4:13 dream. great version.Wrong number: Reeves Gabrels incredible on guitar!100 years: always an incredible moment for me during cure shows!Disintegration: nice vocals performance by Robert. Would love if he used his bass 6 like he used to do in the past.1st encore, The Kiss: Robert said that even if they had less time than planned, they were determined to play this. For me, the most powerful live Cure song. Third time I hear it live. Second best time (after the Vieilles Charrues 2002 version)2d encore: Robert introduced the songs in French, saying that they had 11 minutes left, maybe 10 minutes, maybe 9 minutes. I think it's at that moment that he also said something like "life is a race, so we'd better fucking get on with it!". Pop songs and a lot of fun in the audience. Happy for my gf who wanted Boys don't cry for her first Cure show :o)

That was my 13th Cure show (and the first stormy one!). See you at the Paleo Festival for the 14th!"